This invention relates in general to plastic closures for containers and more particularly to such closures which are designed for snap-on assembly and which include a tamper-evident feature.
The container closure art is quite crowded with numerous styles of closures, many with very limited and specialized purposes. One small segment of that art includes those closures which are intended to cooperate with the corresponding container, not by threaded engagement, but rather by snapping onto the neck of the container. So long as the mutually engaging portions have a correct size and positional location, a very tight and secure seal can be established without the need for threaded engagement.
Another segment of the closure art which is applicable to threaded engagement closures as well as snap-on closures includes those closures with some type of tamper-evident feature. A tamper-evident feature is used to alert the end user or recipient of the container that the contents may have been tampered with at some earlier point in time. By constructing a closure which cannot be defeated for access to the contents of the container without showing that it has been defeated or at least tampered with, the end user or recipient is assured that the contents are unaltered if the closure does not reveal any tampering. Concerns over tampering are solved by means of the present invention which offers a snap-on, pull-off closure which cannot be defeated as initially applied to the container, for access to the container contents, without showing, by the appearance of the closure, that tampering has occurred. The present invention includes a bail handle attached to the body of the closure by means of attachment ribs which are bounded by a pair of score lines (one adjacent each rib) disposed on the inside of the closure body skirt. The increased axial height of the closure relative to its diameter in combination with an abutment surface on the container neck assures that the closure cannot be pried off without showing evidence of such prying attempts. If prying off of the closure is attempted, the score lines will be partly severed or the lower edge of the closure marred or torn, all of which reveal that an attempt to tamper with the container contents has been made. Further, by disposing the majority of the bail handle at a location continguous to the lower edge of the container body, and by attaching this bail handle to the container body by means of a plurality of frangible elements, any attempt to pry off the closure will by necessity push upwardly on the bail handle, causing one or more of the frangible elements to fracture, thereby indicating that an attempt has been made to tamper with the contents of the container.
When it is intended to remove the closure of the present invention from the neck of the container, the bail handle is pulled upwardly thereby severing each of the frangible elements and with continued pulling in an upward direction, the attachment ribs act to sever the score lines and thereby allow the lower portion (skirt) of the closure body to flare outwardly, effectively increasing its diameter, thus enabling the closure to be pulled off of the container neck.
While certain prior art references exist, none are believed to anticipate nor to render obvious the present invention. However, it may be deemed that one or more of such references are relevant to the present invention and thus these various references are set forth below.
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Patentee ______________________________________ 4,230,229 Crisci 3,902,621 Hidding 3,952,901 Conti 4,227,619 Magnusson 4,320,843 Dubach 3,976,215 Smalley 4,197,960 Walter 3,462,035 Grussen 3,690,499 Westfall et al. ______________________________________
Crisci discloses a snap-on bottle cap for a container having a neck configuration which includes an annular shoulder over which the bottle cap is engaged so as to be self-retaining thereon. The bottle cap is formed of resilient material permitting distortion of the cap when it is applied to the bottle. A ring is positioned around and fastened to an annular flange of the cap by a plurality of frangible elements and it is attached to a portion thereof separated from the remainder by spaced cut-away areas. The ring thus may be used as a pull ring to free the portion of the annular flange as necessary in removing the cap by permitting the remainder of the cap to expand circumferentially so as to become disengaged from the annular shoulder on the neck portion of the bottle.
Hidding discloses a tamper-proof cap structure which includes a cap, a locking ring and a handle and is intended for use with a bottle or similar container having one or more teeth fashioned adjacent a reduced bottle neck. The cap structure locking ring is provided with one or more pawls positioned to mate with the container neck teeth to prevent the cap from being unscrewed from the container. Frangible connectors which rigidly connect the locking ring and cap can be broken if sufficient unscrewing torque is applied to the cap; and the broken connectors and dropped ring provide visual evidence that tampering has at least been attempted.
Conti discloses an overcap for receipt on a jar in surrounding relation to a threaded closure cap of the jar and which when mounted prevents tampering with the closure cap and unauthorized entry into the jar interior. The overcap includes an upper surface overlying the closure cap and a skirt depending circumferentially therefrom. The skirt is radially spaced from the closure cap substantially along its length so that the overcap is free for rotational movement relative to the closure cap and cannot be frictionally coupled to the closure cap to effect removal of the latter.
Magnusson discloses a tear tab closure for containers which comprises a cap having a top, a downwardly depending skirt, a tear tab projecting from the skirt and terminating in a finger ring. The tear tab is relatively short and the finger ring is secured thereto by any suitable mechanical or adhesive fastening means. The finger ring has a large enough inside diameter to facilitate capture of the finger ring by a finger of the user and it may be disposed to lie at the side of the container or it may be large enough in diameter to encircle the container in close proximity thereto. Dubach discloses closure means for a bottle for hermetically sealing the bottle. The disclosed closure means is shaped like a cap comprising at least one slitting by means of which the side wall of the cap spreads when being set. The cap furthermore comprises an inside annular bead and a sealing collar for hermetically sealing the cap onto the bottle. The cap further comprises a lift-off element for easy reopening and at least one tear-off tensioning member spanning the slitting so as to counteract spreading and acting as a warranty signet.
Smalley discloses a tamper-indicating, press-on, pull-off closure for maintaining pressure in a container whereby the closure and container provide a package which may be readily opened by a customer without the use of tools and without the creation of dangerous sharp edges. This closure includes a cap and a cap liner which fits within the cap and is formed integral with a pull ring for removal of the cap from a container. A plurality of severable tamper-indicating webs are formed between the pull ring and the cap liner and sever upon actuation of the pull ring to indicate tampering with the package.
Walter discloses a tamper-proof cap and neck assembly which are made of stretchable plastic material in which the neck has portions fitted within and about a short metal neck portion of a container which serves as a rigidifying back-up for the plastic neck. A locking shoulder on the neck provides a deflection-resistant structure and thereby prevents a tamper-indicating ring connected to the cap from slipping off the shoulder without tearing upon initial unthreading of the cap. This rigidified structure also facilitates application of the tamper-indicating ring during initial threading of the cap onto the threaded neck at which time the ring is stretched over the shoulder by a capper bead which engages force-transmitting posts integral with the ring for forcing the ring over the locking shoulder.
Grussen discloses a one-piece plastic bottle cap which comprises a crown-shaped main part encircled by a reinforcing ring which holds the main part on the bottle and is integral therewith over a 60.degree. sector, but may be swung upwardly and used to pull the cap off the bottle. The cap has two depending skirts and the inside of the outer skirt is provided with retaining means for engagement over the peripheral ridge on the mouth of a bottle.
Westfall discloses a composite closure which includes a flexible, resilient plastic fitment, and a gasketed rigid closure panel. The fitment has a perforate top and dependent skirt. The closure panel is retained within the skirt. A lifting ring in the top of the flexible plastic fitment is joined to marginal portions of the fitment top by breakable bridging portions and by substantially unbreakable integral hinge portions attached directly to a portion of the skirt. Once breakable bridging portions are broken, the semi-detached ring serves to alert shoppers that the closure has been previously tampered with or removed.
While many of the intended purposes for the listed references are much the same, and in part similar to the intended purpose of the present invention, it is to be noted that the novelty of a device is not based upon its intended purpose, but rather on its uniqueness of structure employed to accomplish the particular purpose. Further, none of the disclosed devices rely on an increased axial height of the closure in order to preclude the ability to manually remove the closure from the container neck by pulling or twisting the closure off, a technique which is available with those closure designs of a limited axial height. As should be understood, when the axial height of a snap-on, flexible closure is somewhat small with respect to the diameter of the closure, then the side wall of the closure may be deflected outwardly to a sufficient degree in order to clear the top rim of the container neck thereby allowing the closure to be removed. If tamper-evident means are disposed as part of the closure they may not disclose any tampering depending upon their type and location. Due to the fact that such closures are typically fabricated from a flexible synthetic material, if only a minimal amount of side wall flexing is required in order to sufficiently distort the closure so that it may be removed from the container, then it is likely that any frangible elements or other tamper-evident features will not be broken or severed by this minimal amount of flexing. For this reason, the closure of the present invention has an increased axial height, and relative to the diameter size of the closure, a minimal amount of flexing is not sufficient to break or sever the frangible elements and is not sufficient to distort the side wall of the closure sufficiently for removal from the container neck. Any amount of flexing or distortion of the side wall of the closure that would enable its removal from the container neck would by necessity according to the present invention's design result in tearing of the side wall, breaking of the frangible elements connecting the bail handle to the side wall or partial severing of the score lines which are disposed in the side wall of the closure.
The concept of increasing the axial height of a snap-on closure in order to prevent prying off of the closure without detection is a concept that is completely novel. Another novel feature of the present invention includes a primary seal design that enables the normal cap liner to be eliminated.